Posted 7/15/2010 06:33:00 PM by Douglas

For those of you out there thinking of joining the priesthood, but were afraid they'd throw you out after you molested a kid, never fear: the church chose not to adopt a "rape one child and you're out" policy.

The Vatican issued a new set of norms Thursday to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal, cracking down on priests who rape and molest minors and the mentally disabled.

The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.

But the document made no mention of the need for bishops to report abuse to police and doesn't include any "one-strike and you're out" policy as demanded by some victims' groups.

Sounds fair. I mean let's face it. You can't throw 'em all out just because they raped one kid. If you did that, who would make the trains run on time. Who hasn't been working late on a Tuesday night, or maybe had a couple of beers on Saturday, and you decide to rape a kid. It's completely understandable. Let's not go nuts here. Let's just issue them a sternly worded letter for their personnel file which may or may not be included in their transfer paperwork when they get moved to another church. You know, moved to another church for raping a kid.

But fear not, those of you that think the church is taking too soft a stance on this. It's still the same old church you know and love:

The document also listed the attempted ordination of a woman as a "grave crime" to be handled by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, just as sex abuse is.

Look, women, if god wanted to make you a priest, he'd have given you a penis. He didn't. Can't you get over that part? So find some other way to serve the church that god does approve of, and leave the priesting and the raping of children to the menfolk.